


Mistakes Passed On

by VeloxVoid



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Childhood Friends, Developing Friendships, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Blue Lions Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Post-Canon, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-16 04:22:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29570268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeloxVoid/pseuds/VeloxVoid
Summary: The war is over, but Dimitri’s friendships remain severed. So when he receives a visit from Ingrid, somebody he thought had abandoned him, he is more than willing to help. Together, they help achieve Ingrid’s dream of becoming a Knight, and suture the wounds that formed between them.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd & Ingrid Brandl Galatea
Comments: 6
Kudos: 9





	Mistakes Passed On

**Author's Note:**

  * For [corbomites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/corbomites/gifts).



> Written for Corbomites, as a prize for the Long Live: Faerghus Four zine raffle! Thank you for requesting something so wonderful :)

The breeze riffling through Dimitri’s hair was pleasantly balmy — a feat considering the typical climate in Faerghus. At this time of the year, a bitter bite was usually hidden beneath the spring winds — the sun a mere guise veiling the frigid air all around.

Alas, today was warm. Surprisingly so. Dimitri sat beneath the cloudless sky wearing a sweater knitted for him by Annette Dominic: his birthday gift from an old friend. Across from him sat another old friend of his — one a little less bubbly, but with equal amounts of joy emanating from their very being.

“How’s your tea?” Ingrid Galatea asked him, her own cup held close to her body, the steam flowing around her face with misty tendrils.

Dimitri smiled back at her, the feeling still slightly unfamiliar against his features. Five years of scowling had made its mark on his muscles. “It is wonderful, thank you,” he responded to her, giving a nod of thanks.

“Good,” she said. She took a sip of her own. “The Blaiddyd family gardens are just as gorgeous as I remember them.”

He looked around himself, at the topiaries and flowerbeds decorating the castle’s garden. They sat nestled in the centre of it, at one of the wooden tables brought out for tea parties. “It hasn’t changed much since we were children, has it?”

“Nope,” Ingrid replied, sighing happily. “We have, though. We’ve been through a lot, huh?”

Flashes of war; steel crying out against steel; the screams of the Imperial soldiers; his vision red and filled with rage, ending every life in his path. He shook his head, ridding himself of the images.

He remembered as if it were yesterday.

* * *

The end of the war; the country only just patched up, still licking its wounds, still staving off the starving hounds of trauma that would come baying every night.

After a lifetime of war, and of sitting in Garreg Mach afterwards working out recovery strategies, Dimitri had finally been allowed to return home.

_Home?_ Was that what this shell of a castle had once been to him? It still contained all of its old furnishings — paintings and ornaments, statues and fountains — but it felt so strange to him. No, this was not _his_ castle; this was his father’s. It was the seat of a better ruler. A better king. A better person in every sense of the word.

His memories haunted the place. Upon returning home with what little belongings he had left, Dimitri felt lost.

“You must relax,” Dedue told him in that comforting deep voice of his. “Take a week off. You have worked so much recently. The country will function just fine even if you take a break.”

Dimitri wasn’t so sure. But he had done as instructed, donning a set of casual clothes that felt foreign against his body. No weight of armour — no constructive material suppressing his muscles. He felt almost naked, but decided to wander about the castle all the same, familiarising himself with it once more.

Corridors that were once home, now a maze. Rooms that were once comforting, now only existing to remind him of his ghosts. After a mere few minutes, Dimitri became suffocated, his lungs craving fresh air and driving him to the nearest exit.

Clumsily, he found himself tripping up the stone steps to the watchtower on bare feet, the cold seeping through his skin to chill his bones. He cared not. He continued until he reached the outside world, a gale battling with his hair and slapping fine droplets of sleet against his skin.

Once he reached the watchtower’s wall, however, and could look out into the landscape before him, the view was spectacular. Below, Fhirdiad stretched out for miles of grey brick, but was surrounded as far as the eye could see by incredible fields of emerald green, some planted with crops, others dotted with wildflowers and skirted by woodland. He had always loved his homeland, as frigid as it was.

Yet within Fhirdiad’s walls, all was quiet. In this weather, nobody ventured outside. It was bitter cold, the rain turning to ice to flurry around in a whirl of shards. The city seemed barren; streets empty, windows shuttered, markets closed.

_Was_ that because of the weather, though? Or was it because of him? Could the village sense the looming, odious presence of their new king watching over them? Had they hidden because of him, their persecutor? He watched from the top of the tower like some great hulking vulture, a harbinger of death come to descend upon them.

He placed his wet face into wet palms and wiped downwards — an attempt to rid himself of such self-destructive thoughts. He was _okay_ now, that was what everybody kept telling him. Dedue was by his side, the Professor an ally back in Garreg Mach, and he was the Saviour King. So they all said.

He just couldn’t shake the feeling of overwhelming loneliness. Loneliness was a sensation he’d embraced upon becoming the gnarled, monstrous creature of war that had consumed him after the war broke out. Yet he was not that person — that monster — anymore. He was human again, the child of his former self peering through the cracks of his war-hardened exterior, wanting to escape. He craved the chime of laughter in his ears, the warmth of an embrace. He knew, though, that everybody who had once been close to him had been pushed away; that he may never experience such warmth again.

When at last he looked back up at his surroundings, the sleet coming down a little harder now, Dimitri spotted movement from the city down below. Down the main street of Fhirdiad’s city — the silver-bricked path that led to the castle — trotted a solitary pale horse and its rider, their head down to shelter against the sleet.

In one hand they bore a standard: a sea green crest upon an ocean of turquoise. But that crest, Dimitri realised as he peered closer, was no ordinary one. The symbol stamped into the cloth, plain for all to see, was none other than the Crest of Daphnel — the symbol of House Galatea.

_Galatea._

Dimitri’s eyes widened as he focussed on the form of the horse and its rider. No, not a horse — not quite. The shapes barely perceptible at its sides were the folded wings of a pegasus. A pegasus, House Galatea, and a lone rider headed towards the castle. That combination could only mean one thing, and it made Dimitri’s blood run cold.

He turned at once, running back down the watchtower’s stairs and through the castle as fast as he could. His brain swirled with a blizzard of thoughts, each sending more adrenaline through his veins than the last. He tripped over the cobalt rug, nearly careened into a servant, and caused a ruffled Dedue to burst from his quarters, shouting after him in panic.

After descending the castle’s main staircase, Dimitri burst through the front doors out into the courtyard, feet still bare as he tread on the wet, sharp, slippery gravel.

One of the guards posted at the gate was already marching up to greet him. They began with a message, delivered somewhat frantically as they noticed the King running towards them. “Your Grace, you are being visited by Miss Gala—”

“Ingrid!” Dimitri shouted over, waving over at the form of the woman he spotted standing at the gate.

She looked up at once, eyes startled, interrupting her conversation with the other guard. And Dimitri stood, hair plastered to his face in sodden mats, his casual clothes stuck to his body from the weather that drenched him, panting as he stared at her. She stared back.

“Please,” he said at last, breathless. “Join me.”

She nodded.

Back in the castle, Dimiri re-entered the dining hall in a warm, fresh set of clothes, and a towel with which he dried his hair.

“My apologies, Ingrid,” he said, approaching the woman sitting at the end of the table.

“No need,” she said. She gave him a wry smile — one that looked to tug a little uncomfortably at her cheek muscles. An awkward smile.

Dimitri sighed. While at first he had been delighted — astounded, shocked, and admittedly a little overjoyed at the sight of an old friend — of course the feeling would not last.

“So, please,” Dimitri started, feeling his voice wobble. He pulled out a chair adjacent to her and sat. “What brings you to Fhirdiad?”

“I, um… I apologise. I know I could have written to you about my visit. In fact, I probably should have…” She tucked a lock of sodden hair behind her ear — a trait she’d always had, indicating nervousness. “But in honesty, I didn’t really _think_ before setting out here. I didn’t… _plan,_ or anything. I didn’t know what I was doing.” She stared down at her hands, which trembled from the cold.

The nerves of Dimitri’s stomach coiled within him, setting him on edge. He wanted to fidget — to play with his fingers, tap his feet, tug at his hair — but he restrained himself. What did Ingrid want? Why was she here? Was the news she came to deliver bad? He felt nauseous as he listened to her, each of her words causing more dread to swirl within him.

“My apologies. I don’t mean to burden you, I just I didn’t know where else to turn. You... are the only person I can speak to about this.”

Dimitri blinked at her. She was turning to him? In a time of need — as someone to speak to, lean on?

“What plagues you, Ingrid?” Dimitri asked softly, leaning towards her. The anxiety still curdled within him, but a spark of hope had begun to flicker into a flame. _You are the only person I can speak to._ That felt good.

After taking a deep inhale through her nostrils, Ingrid sighed. She waited a few moments longer, visibly mulling over her thoughts, before she spoke. “It is my dream to become a knight, Dimitri,” she said, her eyes swimming with desperation — almost frantic.

She had called him Dimitri. His name, not his _Highness_ or his _Grace._ She had called him by the name she had used back when they were friends — childhood friends. A lump formed in his throat, which he fought hard to swallow.

“What’s stopping you from becoming a Knight?” he asked. “You are talented, and driven — loyal to a fault and stronger than most everybody I know! You would make a fine Knight, I know it.”

“It’s just that my family won’t listen! Not one bit.” Her emerald eyes searched his own, beginning to brim with tears. “They don’t care about what I want — what my aspirations are, what I was born to be. All they want is for me to _marry._ For me to inherit their lands, pass on their name, pass on their Crest—!”

“Well you can be my Knight,” Dimitri said. His tone came out a little more curt than anticipated, but he followed it with an enthusiastic nod.

It stopped Ingrid in her tracks. She sat back in her chair, lips parting as she blinked, uncomprehending. “Wh… what?” she asked.

“There’s no question about it,” Dimitri shrugged. “It’s a simple answer, really.”

“You want me to be _your_ Knight? A Knight of the King?”

“A Knight of House Blaiddyd, of course.” He laced his fingers together atop the table and leaned closer to her. “Ingrid, if your dream is to be a Knight, then you can damn well be one.”

Her long blonde eyelashes fluttered wildly, tears rising to her eyes. “You would… have _me_ as your Knight?”

And Dimitri could do nothing but laugh — a loud, musical sound that filled the dining hall and bounced back into his ears in tumultuous echoes. “No doubt about it! You are the most accomplished soldier I know. I’ve seen your skills on the battlefield, the way you defended me. I know how devoted you are to your cause. You would make a fine Knight — it would be an honour to have you.”

Ingrid joined him in laughing, a smile overcoming her face. “Are you in need of one? Is there a space vacant, or…?”

“It matters not!” Dimitri laughed. “We have more than enough room for you, honestly.”

The woman looked delighted, virescent eyes lighting up and welling with tears, the gold flecks within shimmering. This was the face Dimitri recognised well — the face of the young girl he used to know, back in their childhood. This was the face she’d give him when she found him in games of hide-and-seek; when they would visit each other after months of not seeing one another; when they had met for the first time beneath Garreg Mach’s roof, realising they’d both been accepted into the Academy.

The old Ingrid was back, sitting right in front of him. Granted, she was older now — had witnessed war and loss, agony and death, all of which were visible in the tired shadows of her eyes. Her face was fuller and hair was much shorter, springing into golden waves from where it had been drenched by the rain.

That reminded him.

“Oh, forgive me, you are more than welcome to a bath and fresh change of clothes. We have a spare room for you to stay in as well—”

Yet Ingrid simply looked at him, her eyes swimming with all sorts of emotion: happiness, a sort of longing, a sort of sombreness...

“I’m sorry, Dimitri,” she said at last, voice as soft as a Garland Moon breeze.

“Is something the matter…?” he asked back.

“I can’t even imagine how hard the war must have been on you. How much you were going through.” She reached forwards across the table, holding onto Dimitri’s hands with her own. The action shocked him a little — the heat of her skin, the delicacy of the gesture.

“I don’t follow,” he said, his own voice sounding as quiet and frightened as a child.

She gave a smile full of pity. “I’m sorry for how I’ve treated you. I left your side when you needed me most. We all did — Felix, Sylvain, and I—”

“Ingrid, no!” Dimitri leaned forwards and squeezed her hands back. “I was despicable, I know that. I should never have treated you all the way I did. I pushed you away, and I do not blame you—”

“But you’ve changed, Dimitri,” Ingrid said, a sad smile upon her lips. “I know you’re better now. So I should have said something sooner. Apologised and tried to make amends sooner…”

“This is nothing to beat yourself up about,” he implored. “I assure you, I understand. I just…” And he couldn’t stop a smile from breaking across his face, bathing in the honour that somebody like Ingrid — somebody so loyal, kind, and honourable as her — wanted to make amends with him. Wanted to _apologise._ “Thank you so much.”

She gazed back at him for a long moment, deep emotion etched into each of her features. “Thank you too, Dimitri.”

His chest grew tight and his eyes grew hot, and he cleared his throat to distract himself. No more tears. No more crying. He nodded and pushed back from the table, his chair scraping across the floor. “Now, please. Let’s get you clean and warm, shall we?”

Ingrid allowed herself to be helped up, Dimitri holding onto the soothing warmth of her hands and pulling her to her feet. She shivered but smiled, the expression almost shy, reminiscent of when they’d first met.

In a way, it did feel like Dimitri was meeting her again for the first time. Over a decade later, the two of them had changed so much from their first meeting. Now, they were sculpted by war, scarred by the hardships they’d endured, both from their home lives and otherwise.

So Dimitri led Ingrid through Fhirdiad’s castle, directing her towards one of the bathrooms.

“The spare bedroom you used to occupy when we were children is free, if you remember how to get to it,” he told her once she had collected some towels and a spare set of comfortable clothes.

“I do,” Ingrid said, smiling wide. “It’ll be nice to be back, I’m sure.”

Dimitri chuckled. “I’ll have all your belongings sent there. Once you’re all settled, feel free to come down to my father’s—” _Nope. Not any more._ “— to _my_ office. We can discuss the paperwork of your recruitment, if you’re ready.”

“I’m ready,” she replied, holding the pile of towels and clothes even closer to her body, squeezing them with excitement.

Dimitri smiled, warm and genuine. “Great. Welcome aboard, newest Knight.”

* * *

Now, almost a full year later, they sat together beneath a midday sky, the clouds all dried up to leave nothing but an expanse of sapphire above.

“I’m glad you’re my Knight, Ingrid,” Dimitri said, sipping at the chamomile tea that had only just started to regain its flavour. Mellow, how he remembered it from his childhood.

“What makes you say that?” Ingrid asked in response, reaching across the table to pick up a little sandwich from the platter.

And Dimitri shrugged. “I was just reminiscing. You’ve been the most loyal, helpful Knight I could’ve asked for. Not that I expected any different.” He winked at her with his good eye.

She puffed out her chest in response. “It’s what I was born to do!”

That made Dimitri chuckle; Ingrid joined him, their laughs mingling together to create a chorus — musical tones that rang out into the balmy air, tickling at Dimitri’s chest in a way that still felt unfamiliar.

Yes, after all those years of solitude, happiness still came fleetingly to Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd. Yet with Ingrid at his side, his stalwart Knight, their friendship rekindled, joy graced him a little easier. Sometimes, he even felt like he deserved it.


End file.
